Neil Gaiman's Very Necessary Apocalypse Comedy Good Omens Is Coming to Amazon

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Neil Gaiman's Very Necessary Apocalypse Comedy Good Omens Is Coming to Amazon

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In 2018, even angels and devils will cross party lines to prevent the coming of the End Times—on the small screen, at least. In an apropos bit of news, Amazon announced today that author Neil Gaiman will be adapting his novel Good Omens into a "comedic apocalyptic" miniseries, set to be released on Prime Video next year.

Good Omens, beloved by generations of fantasy readers, tells the story of humanity’s last bumbling steps towards the Apocalypse, as angel Aziraphale and demon Crowley try to procrastinate towards the end of the world—turns out, life on Earth is pretty comfortable for the manifestations of Good and Evil. The four horsemen of the Apocalypse include War, a female war correspondent, and Famine, a diet book author. And due to a mix-up at the county hospital, Adam Young, the Antichrist, grows up in a quiet British town. The comedy may have seemed far-fetched when Gaiman co-wrote it with Terry Pratchett in 1990, but considering tomorrow’s inauguration of a one-time reality TV star to the highest office in the land, the apocalypse comedy of Good Omens seems more like parody than fantasy.

Gaiman will write the script for the six-part limited comedy series for Amazon and the BBC, and will also serve as showrunner. Today's news promises a good couple of years for Gaiman fans: In addition to Good Omens in 2018, an adaptation of his 2001 novel American Gods is set to premiere on Starz in April.

It might be the adaptation that the world needs by 2018—until then, we’ll have to wait and see if the Amazon series was foretold by that 17th century classic, The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch.